Understanding Asexuality

This is not to say that someone who has had an enduring lack of desire for all forms of sexual activities, including partnered sex and masturbation, should not be labeled asexual. They should, in my view. This is because, as mentioned above, this person would lack sexual attraction for others (although perhaps not lack romantic attraction), along with lacking additional sexual processes (e.g., no sex drive). In fact, using an enduring lack of sexual desire for all sexual activities is, perhaps, a more stringent definition of asexuality than the one I have proposed, because it would include a lack of sexual attraction and a lack of sex drive. Thus, a lack of sexual attraction may be construed as a “minimal” definition for asexuality.

A couple of miscellaneous factors remain. One concerns sexual identity. Why not define an asexual person as anyone who, in fact, defines himself or herself as asexual? This is a reasonable question, and self-definitions/identities are important in a number of ways. For one, considering self-definitions respects the way someone chooses to label him or herself. There are also many interesting research and health issues about forging a sexual identity, including an asexual identity, as we will discuss in chapter 7. But is self-definition the best way to understand the main factor(s) underlying asexuality as a sexual orientation and/or as a phenomenon? Because one’s sexual identity is often formed by a variety of factors—such as knowledge of a label or labels, comfort level with coming out, and political and other factors—many sexologists, including myself, are often wary of using self-identification as the key dimension in defining sexual orientation.[11] As mentioned above, many sexologists define sexual orientation in terms of sexual attraction, as we believe it is the “psychological core” of sexual orientation.

Another miscellaneous factor is pleasure. When we think of sex, we may think of sexual attractions, arousal, and desire, but we also think of pleasure. And when we do think of the pleasures of sex, we usually associate it with the arousal aspect (e.g., feelings of pleasure associated with erections and vaginal lubrication and the intense pleasure when physical arousal culminates in an orgasm). This makes sense because the organs of sex most directly associated with physical arousal (i.e., penis, clitoris, vagina) are brimming with nerve endings, which ultimately connect to the pleasure centers of the brain that are capable of making us experience intense pleasure. But all aspects of the sexual experience, broadly defined (including attraction, behavior, and desire), elicit a certain amount of pleasure. For example, a heterosexual man may experience pleasure at the mere sight of a beautiful woman (attraction) without ever—alas!—experiencing the physical pleasures (arousal/orgasm) of sex with her.

You may be thinking that this discussion on sexual pleasure is interesting, but also wondering, yet again, what all of this has to do with asexuality. Do asexual people lack sexual pleasure, and with all aspects of sex? It is likely the case that some asexual people may not have pleasure with many, if not all, aspects of sex, but a lack of pleasure does not seem to be the key defining factor associated with asexuality. Some asexual people do, for example, have arousal experiences and evidently receive pleasure from these experiences, as one of the quotes above, repeated here, demonstrates: “everything works fine, pleasurable and all, it’s just not actually attracted to anything” (Brotto et al., 2010, p. 612). How many asexual people do nonetheless receive some level of pleasure from their arousal is unknown, but it is clear that a lack of sexual pleasure is not a defining feature for all asexual people.

Summary